Yes. What's remarkable about Canadian elections is how amateur they are and how well run they are. All of our local polling places are staffed by people who are paid, but they're essentially temporary people working to serve our democracy. They're doing kind of the most important civic activity that we do. I've always found that interesting.
The challenge is when voters walk into a polling place and are confronted with 200 or 1,000 names on a ballot. It makes it challenging for election workers to explain the ballot to them, and it makes it challenging for them to help the voters do what the voters intend to do. Voters are not there to cast a ballot for some person who got onto the ballot through a signature-harvesting exercise. They're there to vote for one of the major parties, maybe a real independent local candidate or a local notable, or a small party that's trying to break through.
When voters are being told, “Look, voting is straightforward; trust us that you can do this”, and then suddenly they are confronted with a metre-long ballot, it erodes, at least at the margin, their sense of democratic efficacy, and it makes it hard for the people running elections. I'm sure it's frustrating to explain where to look on that ballot for the people who are actually running for office.
